Standards, Environments, and Macros NANORC(5)
NAME
nanorc - GNU nano's rcfile
DESCRIPTION
This manual page briefly documents GNU nano's rcfile.
nano is a small, free and friendly editor which aims to
replace Pico, the default editor included in the non-free
Pine package. Rather than just copying Pico's look and
feel, nano also implements some missing (or disabled by
default) features in Pico, such as "search and replace" and
"go to line and column number".
The nanorc file contains the default settings for nano. It
should not be in DOS or Mac format. During startup, nano
will first read its system-wide settings from
SYSCONFDIR/nanorc, and then user-specific settings from
~/.nanorc.
OPTIONS
The configuration file accepts a series of set and unset
commands, which can be used to configure nano on startup
without using the command line options. Additionally, the
syntax, color, and icolor keywords are used to define syntax
highlighting rules for different text patterns. nano will
read one command per line.
Options in nanorc files take precedence over nano's
defaults, and command line options override nanorc settings.
Also, options are unset by default, except for those that
take arguments.
Quotes inside string parameters don't have to be escaped
with backslashes. The last double quote in the string will
be treated as its end. For example, for the brackets
option, ""')>]}" will match ", ', ), >, ], and }.
The supported commands and arguments are:
set/unset autoindent
Use auto-indentation.
set/unset backup
Create backup files in filename~.
set backupdir directory
Set the directory where nano puts unique backup files if
file backups are enabled.
set/unset backwards
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Do backwards searches by default.
set/unset boldtext
Use bold text instead of reverse video text.
set brackets string
Set the characters treated as closing brackets when jus-
tifying paragraphs. They cannot contain blank charac-
ters. Only closing punctuation, optionally followed by
closing brackets, can end sentences. The default value
is ""')>]}".
set/unset casesensitive
Do case sensitive searches by default.
set/unset const
Constantly display the cursor position in the status bar.
set/unset cut
Use cut to end of line by default.
set fill n
Wrap lines at column number n. If n is 0 or less, the
maximum line length will be the screen width less n
columns. The default value is -8.
set/unset historylog
Enable ~/.nanohistory for saving and reading
search/replace strings.
set matchbrackets string
Set the opening and closing brackets that can be found by
bracket searches. They cannot contain blank characters.
The former set must come before the latter set, and both
must be in the same order. The default value is
"(<[{)>]}".
set/unset morespace
Use the blank line below the titlebar as extra editing
space.
set/unset mouse
Enable mouse support, if available for your system. When
enabled, mouse clicks can be used to place the cursor,
set the mark (with a double click), and execute
shortcuts. The mouse will work in the X Window System,
and on the console when gpm is running.
set/unset multibuffer
Allow inserting files into their own buffers.
set/unset noconvert
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Don't convert files from DOS/Mac format.
set/unset nofollow
Don't follow symlinks when writing files.
set/unset nohelp
Don't display the help lists at the bottom of the screen.
set/unset nonewlines
Don't add newlines to the ends of files.
set/unset nowrap
Don't wrap text at all.
set operatingdir directory
nano will only read and write files inside directory and
its subdirectories. Also, the current directory is
changed to here, so files are inserted from this dirac-
tory. By default, the operating directory feature is
turned off.
set/unset preserve
Preserve the XON and XOF keys (^Q and ^S).
set punct string
Set the characters treated as closing punctuation when
justifying paragraphs. They cannot contain blank charac-
ters. Only closing punctuation, optionally followed by
closing brackets, can end sentences. The default value
is "!.?".
set/unset quickblank
Do quick statusbar blanking. Statusbar messages will
disappear after 1 keystroke instead of 25.
set quotestr string
The email-quote string, used to justify email-quoted
paragraphs. This is an extended regular expression if
your system supports them, otherwise a literal string.
The default value is "^([ \t]*[#:>\}])]" if you have
extended regular expression support, or "> " otherwise.
Note that '\t' stands for a literal Tab character.
set/unset rebinddelete
Interpret the Delete key differently so that both Back-
space and Delete work properly. You should only need to
use this option if Backspace acts like Delete on your
system.
set/unset rebindkeypad
Interpret the numeric keypad keys so that they all work
properly. You should only need to use this option if
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they don't, as mouse support won't work properly with
this option enabled.
set/unset regexp
Do extended regular expression searches by default.
set/unset smarthome
Make the Home key smarter. When Home is pressed anywhere
but at the very beginning of non-whitespace characters on
a line, the cursor will jump to that beginning (either
forwards or backwards). If the cursor is already at that
position, it will jump to the true beginning of the line.
set/unset smooth
Use smooth scrolling by default.
set speller spellprog
Use spelling checker spellprog instead of the built-in
one, which calls spell.
set/unset suspend
Allow nano to be suspended.
set tabsize n
Use a tab size of n columns. The value of n must be
greater than 0. The default value is 8.
set/unset tabstospaces
Convert typed tabs to spaces.
set/unset tempfile
Save automatically on exit, don't prompt.
set/unset view
Disallow file modification.
set whitespace string
Set the two characters used to display the first charac-
ters of tabs and spaces. They must be single-column
characters.
set/unset wordbounds
Detect word boundaries more accurately by treating punc-
tuation characters as parts of words.
syntax str ["fileregex" ... ]
Defines a syntax named str which can be activated via the
-Y/--syntax command line option, or will be automatically
activated if the current filename matches the extended
regular expression fileregex. All following color and
icolor statements will apply to syntax until a new syntax
is defined.
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The none syntax is reserved; specifying it on the command
line is the same as not having a syntax at all. The
default syntax is special: it takes no fileregex, and
applies to files that don't match any other syntax's
fileregex.
color fgcolor,bgcolor regex ...
For the currently defined syntax, display all expressions
matching the extended regular expression regex with fore-
ground color fgcolor and background color bgcolor, at
least one of which must be specified. Legal colors for
foreground and background color are: white, black, red,
blue, green, yellow, magenta, and cyan. You may use the
prefix "bright" to force a stronger color highlight for
the foreground. If your terminal supports transparency,
not specifying a bgcolor tells nano to attempt to use a
transparent background.
icolor fgcolor,bgcolor regex ...
Same as above, except that the expression matching is
case insensitive.
color fgcolor,bgcolor start="sr" end="er"
Display expressions which start with the extended regular
expression sr and end with the extended regular expres-
sion er with foreground color fgcolor and background
color bgcolor, at least one of which must be specified.
This allows syntax highlighting to span multiple lines.
Note that all subsequent instances of sr after an initial
sr is found will be highlighted until the first instance
of er.
icolor fgcolor,bgcolor start="sr" end="er"
Same as above, except that the expression matching is
case insensitive.
include syntaxfile
Read in self-contained color syntaxes from syntaxfile.
Note that syntaxfile can only contain syntax, color, and
icolor commands.
FILES
SYSCONFDIR/nanorc
System-wide configuration file
~/.nanorc
Per-user configuration file
SEE ALSO
nano(1)
/usr/share/doc/nano/examples/nanorc.sample (or equivalent on
your system)
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AUTHOR
Chris Allegretta , et al (see AUTHORS and
THANKS for details). This manual page was originally writ-
ten by Jordi Mallach , for the Debian system
(but may be used by others).
ATRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attri-
butes:
ATRIBUTE TYPE ATRIBUTE VALUE
Availability SUNWgnu-nano
Interface Stability Uncommitted
NOTES
Source for GNU nano is available on http:/opensolaris.org.
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